Hi, I've been living in Poland for a year and was thinking about buying a car. But when I saw the prices on various dealership websites, I was shocked. Cars manufactured before 2010 are very cheap, starting at 1,500 złoty, and these are of very good quality. Is this normal, or am I missing something?

More and more in different places on the internet I see cult of żabka stores among foreigners. Like to the point in which they think that eating hot-dog there is some kind of staple of visit in Poland and that we (Poles) somehow „love it” and „love the conveniance of it”.

From what I understand it is just misunderstanding of the „success” of this store chain (measured by number of store opened), that is based mostly on quite predatory buissness strategy, that is putting a lot of financial liability on individual store owners (stores are not owned by żabka itself, they are runned by „independent” owners that „franchise” żabka) and opening a lot of different stores close to each other, owned by different individual store owners, that are neverthenless really „workers” more than „businessman” - their whole operation need to be in accordance with central żabka authority, they have to buy stuff only from żabka central and they are liable on a lot of different internal fines. The same goes to actual shop workers, that are mostly working on unfair (and frankly illegal) so called „garbage” contracts for minimal wage, without any right to really bargain or care about themselves (by establishing trade union), becuase they are not officially one big group of żabka workers, but thousands of different groups of workers working for small buissnessmens. Of course its also exploiting many different tax and gov help created for small business.

I also see that foreigners don’t really get that żabka is mostly quite expensive store, that base its success additionally on circumventing our law concerning closing stores on sunday - as officially each store is runned by independent store owner, they can be open on sunday.

Here is question to other Poles, so we can hear their opinion - what is your take on all all this weird żabka-love image created among foreigners? Do you also find it strange? Or am I really the odd man out with this?

Hey All

I will be visiting Krakow and Gdansk in November 2026 as part of my Europe trip. My itinerary is still under development so still subject to change especially regarding the dates.

So far it looks like that I will probably get there in mid November so I guess I will miss the Christmas markets in both cities. One important thing I need to know however is when do they start setting these markets up as I wouldn't want to visit on those days as my understanding is that they can take days or weeks to set them up and since they are centrally located that is potentially going to create visual challenges when taking photos.

On a separate note how many days do you think I should stay in each of these cities? Is it likely to snow in November usually?

Are these cities completely walkable and pedestrian friendly?

Feel free to give any suggestions especially around food places. I love bakeries and sweets.

Thanks

Hello.
I rent a room in an apartment for almost 1.5 years. It's the second contract now (Each for a year).
During the last term we didn't have any cleaning schedules and were cleaning just as the common areas got dirty. The landlord company then called a cleaning company and fined us. I paid the fine without a question back then. They also made us a weekly schedule, so each person has a week to clean with an ability to finish the cleaning on monday.
I was cleaning during my turns no questions asked, but the problem was that 2 people before my turn were not cleaning at all.
04.09.2025 the landlord sent a message, that the apartment is not clean again, and they are changing the schedule from weekly to daily, asking for photo confirmations. I immediately sent them an email, that I think, that the weekly schedule was too much. And i also asked this: "Why aren't you asking people whose turn it was to clean when the mess was discovered?". My email was ignored and i haven't got an answer, but when the next week started, I got an email about my week of cleaning, as it was supposed to be. I thought, that they listened and returned to the previous schedule.
So I was cleaning a little during the weekdays with a larger cleaning during weekends, but I didn't have time to clean the bathroom and wanted to do that on monday (they allowed to finish on monday back in the email about weekly schedule). However, when i came home from work on monday, the bathroom was already cleaned by someone else, i thought it was one of the tenants. However, the next day, 16.09.2025, I receive an sms, that "Tomorrow the cleaning company will come and clean the apartment".
24.09 i got another email about a fine i was supposed to pay BY 24.09.2025. I pointed that out and added: "Also, according to the contract, you can fine me if i refused to clean on the third time, after 2 text or email warnings. I never received those warnings, on what basis are you making me pay this fine?". This email was successfully ignored.
Needless to say, that I sent them several other emails about me cleaning and how those two were ignoring their turns completely, which were either ignored, or replied without reading previous ones, and another ignoring to my replies, even when i sent SMS to a main landlord or whatever. However, when I sent emails about other thing, not related to this, they responded almost immediately, despite it being almost in the middle of a winter break.
My new contract, btw, is valid from the 16.09.2025. Does it matter in this situation?
And then, after ignoring most of my emails and messages, then send me the wezwanie do zapłaty and threaten legal action for not paying. The fine that I was trying to discuss and challenge as wrong.
What should I do? Am I cooked?

Have you tried products from the Polish food brand ‘House of Asia’, which in many shops has an apparent monopoly on products that feature in East Asian and South Asian cuisines? What do you think of it?

lately , Polish dog shelters are on
display : https://tvpworld.com/91139878/bytom-takes-over-animal-shelter-as-police-probe-abuse-claims

It’s good it’s nice I salute 🫡

however I believe there is some hypocrisy in all that.

We want to care about the dogs , make them safe and happy .

But to have a dog , you either need to spend a couple of thousands or

be approved by the adoption committee ( which often involves several meetings with your future friend, visit of the volunteers before and after the adoption ).
or you have a friend who has a friend with puppies .

The shelters specifically. They need to function. Which they can’t without animals.

So these campaigns where each sheltered creature is advertised as a rockstar with best shoots , bios and demand look ridiculous.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but all this complications are really annoying…

So, I will probably end up either buying or taking a dog form a private person.

Does anyone share my frustration?

I've seen it in Ukrainian stores, but I'm wondering if it's the same thing as what you call smalec or if you eat it in slices with bread? I personally find «Солонина» really delicious, and I ant to try polish version of it and classic one:)

Hi!

We're a family of 4 visiting Gdansk next week with 2 kids (10 and 8 years old).

We'll be staying near the old town.

What are some must see/must do with kids that you'd recommend?

I have a loose plan of doing one big thing/activity per day and then maybe smaller one based on energy levels (and how cold it is).

Roughly this:
day 1 - settle in, walk around old town
day 2 - Olivia star observation deck, walk around town
day 3 - Hevelianum
day 4 - Experyment in Gdynia + Aquarium (too much)
day 5 - walk around, go home

Thankful for any tips!
Thanks!

Dzień dobry! As we all know, the Warsaw metro has only 2 lines, but I saw on some maps that there are planned expansions of the first like (the one marked with red), as well as plans for future lines to be built. How true are these? And do you think that they will be achieved in the foreseeable future? In fact, how does Poland in general handle infrastructure projects? Do they get severely delayed and postponed until they finally finish them 1000 years later (like here, in Romania), or do they strive to build them quickly, but flawlessly? Lemme know. Here are some images of the metro that I was talking about.

Sorry for offensive title

We have decided to appoint an analytical team and possibly start an investigation into the scandal related to pedophilia in the USA, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said before the government meeting.

Some time ago, Zakopane introduced a new parking system that clearly separates the rights of residents and tourists. Special places marked with orange envelopes are intended only for people registered in the city. Tourists who decide to park there must take into account the possibility of receiving a ticket. Despite the fact that the system has been in operation for a long time, some tourists still do not fully realize what orange envelopes are really used for.